


Penmanship

by SkylineStarryEyed



Category: BBC Sherlock, Sherlock - Fandom, johnlock - Fandom
Genre: Domestic, Fluff, Friends to Lovers, M/M, Short
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-11-05
Updated: 2015-11-05
Packaged: 2018-04-30 03:12:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,389
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5148149
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SkylineStarryEyed/pseuds/SkylineStarryEyed
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sherlock pens a thank-you letter to a client and makes a mistake that causes him to rethink his relationship with his roommate and friend, John Watson.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Penmanship

William Sherlock Holmes had a gorgeous signature. It was, of course, illegible aside from the capital letters he regally set aside from the loops and swooshes of the rest, but it was beautiful. As a consulting detective he didn’t get to use it much. The occasional case report he was forced to formally check out from the station, the autopsy report he signed after flogging a body, or the statement made after an attempt on his life were the typical events in which his signature was required.  


It was a slip, he thought. Though to be honest, as Sherlock was so often and so painfully, it was much more than that underneath. He had just penned a letter, a sort of vague thank-you note filled with hateful remarks he could pass off as playful banter to his ridiculous brother. The entire thing was Dr. John Hamish Watson’s fault. Not only had Dr. Watson insisted Sherlock to write this note, but not a week before Sherlock and John had gotten into a conversation about penmanship.  


“I have a doctor’s signature.” John Watson boasted, looking over a bit of paperwork he had brought home from work.  


“If by that you mean childlike, then yes, you do.” Sherlock drawled back. He was wrapped in a blanket at the table drinking tea John had made for himself but handed over without too much grumbling.  


“I think it’s professional, you bloody tea thief.” John shot back, a little offended beneath his jokes. “Let’s see yours then.” He passed the pen and a small legal notepad across to Sherlock who eyed it as if it were still miles away. Finally Sherlock unfurled his arms from his cocoon and took up the pen to draw his masterpiece. Finished he set it back down and took a long sip from his mug.  


John considered the writing for a long moment, standing to turn off the kettle and returning to look some more. Finally; “No character.”  


“What? What do you mean?” Sherlock asked, appalled.  


“It has no character.” John responded, making his own cup of tea. “Mine is mine, it’s got me in it. Yours is grade school penmanship classes. It doesn’t say ‘Sherlock.’”  


“It most certainly does, that’s the point!”  


“You know what I mean!” John shot back through a grin.  


“You do it.” Sherlock shoved the pen and paper back, challenge accepted, a bit of life in his eyes.  


“What?”  


“You do it, then! Come on.” He practically pushed the pen into John’s hand.  


“I’ve just done it, Sherlock.”  


“No, write mine.”  


John considered this. He waited, pen poised over paper as if listening for some cue. Finally he scribbled a bit and showed it back. Sherlock’s name was hardly legible; a large S with tiny spikey letters and a large H followed by the same. Sherlock laughed.  


“That’s horrible.” He said. John feigned offense. Of course Sherlock took it back and quickly but carefully showed John how to write his own name. John Watson. A large J set off from the lilting swoops of the following letters and a large W followed by the same with a small flourish on the N.  


John smiled and shook his head, going back to his tea with no argument.  


The following week was a whirlwind of a case and Lestrade had been next to no help so Sherlock and his doctor solved it in six days flat. Lestrade was grumpy as usual, grumbling empty thank yous, and Sherlock got no recognition up until Lestrade showed up at Baker Street to have Sherlock sign some papers in order for him to be paid.  


Now Sherlock sat at John’s desk, pen hovering in horror over the letter he had just signed. The ink stared back at Sherlock’s open-mouthed gape as if taunting its permanence. The letter was a page and a half long and hand written. To write it again was going to be tedious, copying from the first attempt, but that’s not what was bothering Sherlock. He had spent less than half an hour coming up with the content of this letter and his mind had wandered during it. Maybe that was the cause, a simple case of a wandering brain. The suggestibility of the mind. He had once written “Eyeballs” on a shopping list for John while considering his newest experiment and multitasking. So that’s all this was.  


Disgruntled, Sherlock pushed the pages aside and got a new piece of stationary. He started up again, “Dear Madame, the solution to your husband’s murder would not have been possible without your assistance. Of course, had you realized the affair earlier, the death could have been avoided, but a grade-school education didn’t effectively prepare you for the real world, so here we are…” it began.  


He finished the entire first page and a bit of the second when the noise in his stomach wouldn’t allow him to think any longer. Setting down the pen, Sherlock went into the kitchen and tried to find something acceptable to eat. After a few minutes he remembered that he hadn’t been shopping like John had asked and abandoned his search to trudge down the stairs and beat on Mrs. Hudson’s door.  


It was at this time that the army doctor returned home from work. Tired from a long day, he hung up his coat and removed his shoes, setting his briefcase down. He ran a hand through his hair and sat down in his arm chair for a moment. Seconds passed before John decided that he was bored and stood up to find something to do. The kitchen was miraculously free of human remains, the living room was not stacked to the rafters with case files, and Sherlock actually hadn’t left any bedsheets in heaps on the floor so Watson couldn’t tidy up. The paperwork from his job was finished as well, so he couldn’t work from home. Finally he decided to check his blog for recent posts or comments. His laptop was where he left it last night, but he was smart enough to know that didn’t mean Sherlock hadn’t been playing with it again.  


John opened his laptop and went to his blog, scrolling through comments and statistics about visitors. Once there was nothing more to do, he shut the laptop in a huff and scattered some papers to the ground. Disturbed at the satisfaction of having something to do, he stooped down to pick them all up, making a messy stack just as Sherlock came into the flat.  


“Home already?” he asked, deep voice startling the doctor.  


“Yeah, clinic was slow today.” He responded. Sherlock moved to the kitchen and put the kettle on and John smelled something vaguely acidic. So he had missed an experiment. The papers, which John had now arranged in a neat enough stack, were a range of things from newspaper cutouts to printed-off pictures. John thumbed through them before setting them down and just happened to notice a letter that seemed to be in duplicate. He pulled out all four pages and set the rest of the stack down, moving into the kitchen where Sherlock had set out five coffee mugs. He checked the one closest to him to make sure it was tea and not some sort of pill bug in preservatives before asking about the papers.  


“Why have you written this out twice?” He asked, laying the first two pages out. This was the incomplete copy. Sherlock turned slowly from the counter, already knowing what awaited him, but hoping John wouldn’t realize.  


“I spelled a word incorrectly,” Sherlock said. “So I started over.” John nodded slowly, smiling to himself. Sherlock rolled his eyes at John’s reaction to what he believed was a spelling error.  


“So, you can be wrong. From time to time, at least.” John said. He chuckled and started to speak again when the signature caught his eye. John was speechless. He didn’t know whether to laugh or to give into his confusion. He decided to ignore the tug in his belly, the heat that pooled down low. Sherlock tried to control his expression, but he knew he must look pale. If John came to the same conclusion Sherlock had, this little penmanship error could mean the end of their flat share. Finally John opened his mouth and read: “’William Sherlock Watson?’”


End file.
